Silvia M. Mendes

What Are Elections For? Conferring the Median Mandate

Democracy is often described as a system in which a majority of electors choose one out of a number of competing parties to form a government and carry out its programme. Unfortunately, spontaneous majorities rarely form in support of one party. We generalize from a ‘government’ to a ‘median’ mandate, in which the median elector chooses the pivotal party in parliament, which then translates his or her preferences into public policy. To check this we investigate how accurately parliaments and governments represent the left–right position of the median voter in each of twenty parliamentary democracies. Distortions depend on the type of electoral arrangement, being relatively smaller under proportional representation than under single-member districts. Distortions do not equate to biased representation, however. Once we consider how distortions at one step or one time are compensated by distortions in the opposite direction at another, overall representation of the median voter position is reasonably accurate.

Learning to Lose: Election Outcomes, Democratic Experience and Political Protest Potential

Do democratic elections and experience with democracy affect citizens’ propensity to engage in political protest? If so, how? We develop a model of protest potential based on the incentives election winners and losers face in new and established democratic systems. Using surveys conducted by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) in seventeen democracies around the globe, we compare the effect of being in the political minority or majority after an election on political protest potential. We find that being in the political minority heightens citizens’ political protest potential. Moreover, we find that the effect of losing on protest potential is significantly greater in new democracies relative to established ones. These findings provide systematic evidence that election outcomes should be considered important indicators of political protest potential, and they imply that this effect is particularly salient in countries whose democratic institutions are relatively new and potentially more unstable.

Property Crime and Drug Enforcement in Portugal

The author tests the effect of drug law enforcement on the property crime rate in Portugal, investigating the hypothesis that there exists a property crime and drug crime trade-off. The test is an approximate replication of the Sollars, Benson, and Rasmussen (1994) model using data from 274 Portuguese municipalities in 1996, adjusted for societal differences. Increasing concern over the rise of the drug problem in this country and its seemingly unsuccessful effect on crime has led policy makers to doubt further allocation of scarce resources toward a strict drug policy. Evidence is found that supports the trade-off hypothesis; that is, in Portugal there is a trade-off between efforts to control drug crimes and efforts to control property crimes.

Performance measurement and management in Portuguese law enforcement

Performance measurement of police services is complicated by ambiguous and complex goaland objectives-setting, and by the difficulties of measuring outputs. This article looks at the organizational and management changes being made in Portuguese police forces. The authors fill a gap in the literature on performance measurement in Portugal by taking a national approach to the study of how law enforcement agencies are introducing new management accounting changes. The article therefore widens the debate on performance measurement and performance improvements in law enforcement.

Impact of PMS on organizational performance and moderating effects of context

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of performance measurement systems (PMS) on organizational performance in public sector. In addition, it investigates the moderating effects of the organizational context. Design/methodology/approach Using a multivariate analysis, the authors investigate the extent of PMS used among Portuguese Government agencies and their effects on organizational performance. Data were gathered from the only survey (based on their Comparative Public Organization Data Base for Research and Analysis survey) applied to the Portuguese Government agencies. Findings The authors find that the extent to which agencies use PMS is positively associated with the organizational performance (in a multidimensional perspective). Moreover, the organizational performance is contingent upon the fit between PMS and the agency’s context in light of the contingency theory (especially the orientation to citizens and the level of competition). Originality/value Although prior research has studied the use of PMS in public sector organizations, one question that has not been effectively answered is whether performance information is effectively used to improve public sector performance. In this way, this paper contributes to the understanding of the impact of PMS on the organizational performance, providing empirical evidence in a country that is in a period of “transition” in the introduction of NPM reforms.